The Wyse CX0 is very similar in appearance to the Sx0 that it replaces. It is a small and (physically) lightweight thin client. In contrast to the Sx0 it has two PS/2 ports and no serial port — a reversal in policy here! There are two USB ports at the front and two USB ports on the rear. The video connector is a DVI socket. With a suitable splitter the Cx0 will support two independent monitors.
A Quick-Start guide I found mentions the following models: C00LE, C10LE, C30LE, C50LE, C90LE, C90LE7, C90LEW, but a C-Class data sheet mentions only five:
| Wyse C00LE | Zero client with no local operating system. Used with Wyse WSM provisioning software for a PC experience on a thin desktop. |
| Wyse C10LE | Featuring the blisteringly fast Wyse ThinOS designed for high security environments. |
| Wyse C30LE | Windows CE 6 — Microsoft’s componentized real-time operating system for small footprint devices. |
| Wyse C90LE | Windows XP Embedded — runs thousands of existing Windows applications and drivers. |
| Wyse C90LEW | Take advantage of the power of Microsoft Windows Embedded Standard. |
I have several examples of the Cx0:
- A few C90LEWs manufactured in March 2010 fitted with wireless cards.
- A C90LEW manufactured in November 2011.
- A C10LE manufactured in February 2013.
Specifications
The basic specs for the CX0 are:
| Processor | |
| Type Speed | VIA C71GHz |
| Memory — Flash/RAM | |
| C00LE C10LE C30LE C90LE C90LEW | 0GB/1GB128MB/512MB128MB/512MB1GB/1GB2GB/1GB |
| Video | |
| Chip Max resolution | VX855/VX875 Chrome 91920 x 1200 @ 60Hz Colour:15/16/24/32bpp |
| Ports | |
| Network USB Serial Parallel PS/2 | 10/100/10006 x USB2.0nonenoneKybd & Mouse |
| Power | |
| Input Plug Off Idle Running | 12V 2.5A (from label)Coax 5.5mm/2.1mm1W5W7W |
| Dimensions | |
| W x H x D | 17.7cm x 3.4cm x 12.1cm |
CPU
For those to whom it matters here is some detail from Linux’s /proc/cpuinfo
| vendor_id | : | CentaurHauls |
| cpu family | : | 6 |
| model | : | 13 |
| model name | : | VIA Eden Processor 1000MHz |
| stepping | : | 0 |
| flags | : | fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge cmov pat clflush acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 tm nx pni est tm2 xtpr rng rng_en ace ace_en ace2 ace2_en phe phe_en pmm pmm_en |
PCI
Click for the output from the linux lspci command:
Power Supply
The unit uses a small external power unit rated at 12V @2.5A. It’s fitted with the usual 5.5mm/2.1mm coaxial plug.
Expansion
Flash: The flash is a Disk-On-Module that plugs into a standard 44-pin IDE socket.
RAM: The RAM is provided by a standard DDR2 200-pin SO-DIMM. The C10LE was fitted with a 512MB PC2-6400 CL5 Apacer part whist the C90LEW was fitted with a 1GB PC2-6400 CL6 Apacer part. I have successfully replaced the RAM with a 2GB Hynix part HYMP125S64CP8-S6 (2GB 2Rx8 PC2-6400S-666-12). I don’t know what the maximum size of memory is that the hardware supports.
As with the Sx0 range there is minimal space inside for fitting any alternative to the standard DOM.
Miscellaneous
There are several (white) connectors on the board:
CN2 close to the front panel adjacent to the USB sockets. This has 10 pins.
CN3. A 3-pin connector next to the SODIMM socket with a shorting link connecting two of the pins together. Briefly move the shorting link across to the end closest to the front panel to reset the CMOS.
CN10. A 4-pin socket next to the board mounting screw.
CN11. A 6-pin socket next to CN10. This is a USB port that the internal wireless card plugs into (if fitted). I now have a few C90LEWs with the card fitted.
Wireless
In February 2017 I picked up some C90LEWs with wireless cards fitted. The card fits into the space between the DOM and the copper heatsink and SODIMM. It plugs into CN11 and appears on the USB bus where it is identified as Ralink Technology Corp. RT2770 Wireless Adapter.
Under ‘Networking’ the datasheet does mention:
Cisco CCX Certified internal 802.11 b/g/n (optional) eliminates theft of external wireless adapters
The board itself would appear to be a QCOM LR802UKN unit that is an 802.11b/g/n module working in the 2.4GHz band.
USB
Originally I listed the Cx0 as having four USB ports — the four external ones that you can see. Subsequently I receive an email from Janusz in Poland saying that Windows reports six USB ports and that there were two additional internal ones. One of these is CN11 which is used for the wireless network card.
Running lsusb -t I see he is right:
ptowers@mirror:~$ lsusb -t
/: Bus 04.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=uhci_hcd/2p, 12M
/: Bus 03.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=uhci_hcd/2p, 12M
/: Bus 02.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=uhci_hcd/2p, 12M
/: Bus 01.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=ehci-pci/6p, 480MI always find the output of lsusb slightly confusing. The above shows it has found three two-port USB 1.1 hubs and one six-port USB 2.0 hub. i.e. Six USB ports which can run either at USB1.1 rates or USB2.0 rates.
For those interested this how things change if I switch on my colour printer (see here) and plug in a pen drive:
ptowers@mirror:~$ lsusb -t
/: Bus 04.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=uhci_hcd/2p, 12M
/: Bus 03.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=uhci_hcd/2p, 12M
/: Bus 02.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=uhci_hcd/2p, 12M
/: Bus 01.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=ehci-pci/6p, 480M
|__ Port 2: Dev 7, If 0, Class=stor., Driver=usb-storage, 480M
|__ Port 4: Dev 6, If 0, Class=print, Driver=usblp, 480MBIOS
The DEL key gets you into the BIOS. If it hasn’t been changed the default BIOS password is Fireport
The BIOS identifies itself as Phoenix MicroCore Setup Utility. One nice feature is that the first screen does actually show the BIOS version and date, a feature that most lack leaving you to try and spot it in its (often sub-second) appearance during the boot sequence.
The Boot Device can be set to one of:
- IDE 0:
- PXE LAN: VIA Networking Bootagent
- USB HDD:
- USB FDC:
- USB CDROM:
- USB KEY:
- IDE CD-ROM Drive:
If you have something plugged in to the appropriate port you get a description after the colon. For example plugging in one of my 1GB test Linux pen drives resulted in the USB KEY entry showing: USB KEY: Generic Flash Disk-(USB 2(R/F)F
You can bring up a boot menu (if enabled in the BIOS) by pressing and holding the P key whilst the CX0 boots. On a C90LEW with a pen drive plugged into one of the USB ports I was presented with a choice of:
| Boot Menu | |
| 1. | PXE LAN: VIA Networking Bootagent |
| 2. | IDE 0: 2GB ATA Flash Disk-(PM) |
| 6. | USB KEY: USB2.0 FlashDisk-(USB 2.0(R/F)F |
| <Enter Setup> |
BIOS update
The C90LEWs came with BIOS 1.0B dated 10/07/2009. Checking the Wyse download site at the time the latest BIOS would appear to be BIOS 1.0G dated 01/16/2012. This came as part of the ACA0_S718_2048.exe download which also had the latest version of Windows Embedded Standard. I downloaded this file (all 1GB of it) and used version 1.19 of the USB Firmware Update tool to flash the BIOS. If you’re not familiar with the process details can be found under the Wyse SX0 entry.
In February 2019 Dell closed down the old Wyse support site with all its historical support files. The above file was one of the ones that vanished. For those of you wanting to update the BIOS on your Cx0 you can download an image of it using the link below.
I pulled this image off my updated C90LEW using the Linux utility flashrom. You will need to use this or a similar tool to update your BIOS.
Download: Cx0 BIOS 1.0G
Linux
Tiny Core
First time around I had no problems booting and running Tiny Core 5.4 from a 1GB or a 8GB USB pen drive. However note that the BIOS does treat these devices differently. My usual 1GB pen drive appears in the BIOS under USB KEY:. The 8GB Lexar pen drive I tried appears as USB HDD:.
FYI: As many older thin clients will not boot from pen drives that are larger than ~1GB I decided to check what a more modern one would do when presented with an 8GB pen drive.
On my latest visit I have been running Tiny Core 7.2
Wireless
As the latest C90LEWs I had picked up were fitted with WLAN cards I thought I’d see how easy it was to set then up to run wirelessly. In the event it is fairly straight forward but actually took me a while due to lack of information. Maybe I typed the wrong words into Google when trying to find out the right approach?
I don’t know how many variants of WLAN card that Wyse ship the C90LEW with, but the words below reflect that the WLAN adapter that I had is based on the Ralink RA2770 chip. Yours might be different.
I started with Tiny Core 7.2 and the usual few apps — kmap, pci-utils and usb-utils which I set up with a wired connection.
We know from the lsusb command that the WLAN card uses the Ralink RA2770 chip set. In order to be able to use this we have to use the App Browser to download and install the file firmware-ralinkwifi.tcz. I also picked on wifi.tcz to bring in the necessary WiFi software. An alternative is wicd.tcz which brings in a lot more baggage and also managed to disable my wired connection at one stage. The simplicity of wifi.tcz suited me.
At this point I disconnected the ethernet lead and clicked on the wireless icon to run wifi.sh. It scanned for wireless networks, found the usual ones I see here, and prompted me to select one. Having selected my network and entered the password it went ahead and connected me.
That just left the job of making things happen automatically when the system boots. When the wifi app started it created a file wifi.db in the tc home directory recording my choice of network and password to connect. We also need to add:
/usr/local/bin/wifi.sh -a > /tmp/wifi.log 2>&1
to the bootlocal.sh file.
Finally run filetool.sh -b to ensure that the files are backed up so that the changes persist.